Newspapers and broadcasters today faced the critical decision whether to keep reporters in Iraq on the eve of war or to pull them out following President George Bush's call for journalists to leave the country.

About half of the 300 accredited foreign journalists working in Baghdad are reported to have left the city, including teams from two US TV networks, ABC News and NBC News, whose employers have ordered them out.

Several British newspapers have taken the decision to pull back from the Iraqi capital, including the Times and the Telegraph.

"For their own safety, all foreign nationals, including journalists and inspectors, should leave Iraq immediately," said President Bush in a televised address last night.

The Daily Telegraph pulled out its Baghdad correspondent, David Blair, in the early hours of this morning, and it is believed Janine di Giovanni of the Times plans to leave during the course of today.

The Daily Mirror's Anton Antonowicz and photographer Mike Moore will remain in Baghdad for the time being, although editor Piers Morgan said the situation was constantly under review.

The Sun said it did not have anybody in the region to withdraw, while a spokeswoman for the News of the World said: "Our reporting team will remain in place for as long as it is deemed safe. Their safety and well being is the top priority for the paper."

ITN and the BBC are keeping their teams in place for the time being, although the situation is constantly under review.

The BBC currently has a team of seven in Baghdad. "We are reviewing the situation on an hourly basis, but at the moment the intention is for our team to stay in Baghdad," said a BBC spokeswoman.

"ITN correspondents working for ITV News, Channel Four News and Five News remain in Baghdad, but our presence there is constantly under review," added a spokeswoman for the ITN.

"We do, however, believe it is important to observe and report any impending military action from all key locations. Our policy is to inform viewers when reports are subject to censorship."

Reuters newswire, which has 20 people in Baghdad and about 15 in northern Iraq, including Iraqi citizens and native Arabic speakers as well as foreign nationals, plans to keep its multimedia teams in place for the foreseeable future.

The Middle East and Europe editor, Michael Stott, said Reuters was keeping the situation "under constant review".

"Bush's comments were not a surprise. They are consistent with what the authorities have said all along," said Stott. "These are difficult calls and things that we take very seriously, but we do have a commitment to our readers to cover events."

CNN has two correspondents in Baghdad - Nick Robertson and Rym Brahimi. A spokeswoman for the news channel said: "We're monitoring the situation very closely and obviously the safety of our journalists is our primary concern."

Last October journalists working for CNN, ABC and NBC were ordered to leave Iraq by officials who claimed their reporting was "unauthorised" and "offensive", although until the withdrawal of ABC and NBC this week the US networks had kept a presence in Baghdad.

Earlier today the former editor of the London Evening Standard and Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings, who covered the Falklands war, spoke of the dilemmas facing reporters in times of conflict.

"Unless you're very stupid, you're always going to be frightened. I remember being on my way to the Falklands and thinking I was getting a bit old for all this. I kept thinking, 'Is this one too many?'.

"War gives journalists, as much as soldiers, an extraordinary opportunity. The whole world is watching what you say and write. You get a terrific adrenaline surge of being at the eye of the story, which drives everybody on," he told Sky News.

He added: "I was accused of getting too involved with the troops - I have to plead guilty to that. I personally wanted our side to win. In many ways, the Faklands was a silly war. But when you're there, I don't think anybody should be ashamed of being on our side. It's for the editors and those back at home to make sense of it.

"Now you have instant satellite communications, but that in itself poses problems. It's true that you have this fantastic technology but it's much tougher to decipher what you're seeing means."

And Hastings expressed concerns about the partisan nature of reporting of the Gulf in the last few months, accusing sections of the media of failing to reflect the truth.

In what could be seen as a comment on the Murdoch press and his old stomping ground the Telegraph, he said: "I'm not convinced that a lot of papers have served the public very well. The rightwing papers have been incredibly hawkish and have not given their attention to the mood of the people. Some of them have been playing to the agenda of their proprietors and of the US."

"TV stations and newspapers tend to get overexcited in wars, which is understandable. It's a case of boys with toys, but the hardest thing to remember is that this is ultimately all about lives."

"Nowadays there is this generation of young journalists who don't know that much about the army or about war. They're all terribly brave and gung-ho and get some great stories but tend to be ill-informed."